Summary of chapter 1 (A Psychology for a Cultural Species) of Cultural Psychology by Steven J. Heine (Third Edition). The book is used in the course 'Cultural Psychology' at the University of Amsterdam.
Cultural Psychology (Steven J. Heine)
Chapter 1: What is cultural psychology?
Despite not having any obvious biological advantages (sharp teeth, big muscles etc.)
humans have succeeded in diverse environments because of their reliance on culture.
A Psychology for a Cultural Species
People from different cultures also differ in their psychology.
This is because psychological processes are shaped by experiences. People from
different cultures have different experiences, and thus think differently.
The neurological structures that underlie these psychological processes are universal
and people are born with virtually identical brains all over the world.
This creates a tension between universal and culturally variable psychologies, where
some ways of thinking appear highly similar around the world and some appear
strikingly different.
What is Culture?
There are many different definitions of culture, in this book it means the following
two things:
Culture
= Any kind of information that is acquired from other members of one’s
species through social learning that is capable of affecting an individual’s
behaviours.
= A particular group of individuals who are existing within some kind of
shared context.
There are a few challenges with thinking about groups of people as constituting
cultures:
- The boundaries of cultures are not always clear-cut, because individuals can be
exposed to cultural ideas that emerge from distant locations.
This fluid nature of cultural boundaries weakens researcher’s ability to find
differences between cultures, but when they are found, they provide powerful
evidence that cultures do differ in their psychological tendencies.
Solution: Use nationality as a rough indicator of culture
Problem with solution: There are other groups aside from countries that can
be argued to have cultures. (Like Jewish culture, vegetarian culture, Harvard
culture etc.)
- Cultures are not static, but dynamic entities that change over time.
- There is variability among individuals who belong to the same culture.
So studies on cultures only reflect average tendencies within cultural groups.
(If a study says that East Asians are less expressive than Westerners, it means
this is only true on average. So you can have extremely expressive East Asians
and unexpressive Westerners.)
Psychological Processes Can Vary Across Cultures
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